


A Tolerance For Pain

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Series: Loyalties [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Missing Scene, Multi, Needles, OT3, POV Bisexual Character, Relationship Study, Tattoos, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: She’s been at it for half an hour when Omera comes inside and looks over the individually sealed needles, the bottle of ink and the tiny jar she dips from, and Cara’s hands, one gloved and one not. “Right here on our dining table?” Omera says, not without humor.“I could do it outside,” Cara replies, “but then all the kids would want one.” The other farmers have benignly tolerated her for this long. It would be a shame to make enemies right before the wedding.
Relationships: Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars)
Series: Loyalties [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638454
Comments: 7
Kudos: 82





	A Tolerance For Pain

**Author's Note:**

> One last vignette and then I swear they're getting married. This fic takes place just after chapter six of Acts of Service. cw for needles--if the idea of stick-and-poke tattoos makes you squeamish, don't read this one.

This is delicate work. Cara keeps her left hand spread flat on the tabletop, the better to stretch the skin of the third finger. The point of her needle pricks just under the surface, not deep enough to draw blood, just enough to tug a little on its way back out. Just enough to leave a tiny drop of ink. 

It’s almost a meditative thing, once she gets into the flow of it. She doesn’t want a solid line, which makes this more difficult--but it’s not like Cara has ever done anything the easy way. Lining up the marks just so, and spacing them evenly on a tricky piece of skin, compels her to be slow and careful. 

She’s been at it for half an hour when Omera comes inside and looks over the individually sealed needles, the bottle of ink and the tiny jar she dips from, and Cara’s hands, one gloved and one not. “Right here on our dining table?” Omera says, not without humor. 

“I could do it outside,” Cara replies, “but then all the kids would want one.” The other farmers have benignly tolerated her for this long. It would be a shame to make enemies right before the wedding. 

Omera leans down to peer at Cara’s finger. Cara dabs away the excess ink so she can see it better. “That’s subtle,” Omera observes. 

“Guess I’m mellowing in my old age.” This isn’t like the starbird symbol or the stripes. Odds are, no one but them will ever see it. This one is just for Cara. 

Careful not to nudge the table, Omera sits opposite her. They’re silent as Cara finishes the last centimeter of dots, Cara engrossed and Omera watchful. Cara wipes her finger one more time, coats it in a thin layer of bacta salve, takes off her glove, and gets the chemlight from her belt. She switches it on in ultraviolet mode and holds her hand under it, and the ring of white dots glows blue. 

Cara waggles her brows at Omera. There’s nothing subtle about it. 

Omera considers the finished piece with a hunger in her eyes that Cara has never seen before. “Do you have more of… all this?” she says. 

“Wait, really?” Cara fights to keep her delight off her face, but it’s a losing battle. “You can’t take it off, you know.” 

Cara has seen every inch of Omera, and never found an intentional identifying mark--a holdover from her fieldwork, no doubt. The habits that kept her anonymous, and therefore alive, are the hardest ones to shake. 

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” 

Cara nods. “That, and being able to wear gloves.” And punch people without having to take it off first. “I mean, if you want a ring, we can get you a ring. Djarin would probably cut you one out of his own armor.” 

“And it would probably slip off in a krill pond,” Omera says serenely. “I’d like us to match. If you don’t mind.” 

She doesn’t mind. Cara bites her lip to hold in her smile as she puts her needle in the sharps tube, and the glove and the used ink and the wipes into their own waste bag, then disinfects the jar and the flimsiplast work surface. 

“If you were diseased, we’d know by now,” Omera points out. 

“Ease off the throttle, sweetheart. We’re gonna do this right.” Cara puts on two fresh gloves and opens a new needle, shakes the ink bottle and dispenses just enough into the jar. 

Omera puts her lovely hand in the center of the table. Cara bites her lip again as she runs another disinfectant pad around Omera’s finger. The ink is going to look wonderful on Omera’s skin. Though it will fade faster--her hands get more sun than Cara’s. She’ll probably have to touch the tattoo up regularly. A nice anniversary tradition. 

Is her skin thicker? Her calluses are in different places than Cara’s, but she does have her share of them. She works, backbreaking work, every day. Her hands are so beautiful. 

“Cara?” 

“Yeah, I’m good. You ready?” 

Omera nods solemnly. Cara dips the needle into the jar. She gently grasps Omera’s finger between two of hers, and angles the needle to come at the side. An easy spot to hide if Omera decides after the first couple pokes that she doesn’t want to go through with it. It’s also the most sensitive spot, to give her a baseline for how much pain to expect. 

She presses the needle’s tip into the first layer of Omera’s skin, and Omera takes an unhurried breath. Cara pulls the needle back out. “Okay?” 

“It’s fine,” Omera tells her. 

Cara proceeds, working her way over the top of the finger, slow and steady. 

“I always hated injections,” Omera muses, propping her chin on her other hand. “And those tattoo printers they used for all the squad pieces, those looked awful.” 

“They were.” It burned when she got her stripes, but that was less about the tattoo, and more about being drunk on some hooch distilled down in Engineering while her buddies cheered her on. 

“This is almost soothing though.” Cara looks up long enough to grin at Omera. Leave it to the two of them to find tranquility in some mild stabbing. 

She pricks and she plucks all the way around Omera’s slender finger, mindful of the spacing and the straightness of her line. She’s on the last handful of dots with Omera’s hand turned palm-up when Djarin walks inside, and stops at once to stare at them. “Hey,” Cara says. 

“Is this what you left to get?” Djarin says. She can hear the fascination in his voice. 

“I got a few things,” Cara says, wiping off Omera’s finger. She gives her the salve and peels off her gloves, and then she demonstrates the UV effect again, on both of them this time. 

Djarin tilts his head. He pulls off his left glove. 

Work, work, work. Cara grins up at him. “Is that okay? I mean, is that the Way?” 

“Lots of Mandalorians have tattoos.” 

He’s not lots of Mandalorians. He’s their Mandalorian. “Do  _ you _ though?” 

He shakes his head. 

Cara glances to Omera, who has put the salve on her finger and now holds her hand up, turning it to see the ring from every angle. Cara keeps her head down as she cleans up and resets her supplies, stays silent so she can get through the lump in her throat. 

It’s a gift. Every day with them is a gift, and there’s so little she can give them. Except this: to do things right, to take the time, to pour her attention and her care into it. 

Din sits in the other chair and sanitizes his hand, then rests it on the mat. It’s a nice hand, well-shaped, large enough to hold onto various parts of her and Omera in a satisfactory manner. She knows the strength of his grip, the restlessness of his fingers when he is otherwise still. His skin is closer in shade to hers than Omera’s; he gets even less sun than Cara does. His calluses are almost the twin of hers. 

But the side of his ring finger is just as tender as hers or Omera’s, and he grunts when Cara pricks it. 

Cara stops. “You good?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Din says, with a note of surprise. 

“It shouldn’t, because I know what I’m doing.” 

Across the table, Omera reaches for Din’s other hand. He backs it out of his glove, and Cara watches them lace their fingers together. She almost wishes her hands were bare too. 

Din nods at Cara, and Cara continues, one mark at a time. A minute later he takes a staticky breath in. “I was wrong. It stings like hell.” 

Cara grimaces. “Sorry. That’s the ink.” He only shrugs. 

She darts a look at him and Omera, at Din’s thumb passing over Omera’s marked finger. 

“I was thinking,” Cara says, “after this, maybe we could… go to bed?” 

They both stare at her. She isn’t usually so plain-spoken about it, or so timid. “It’s not even suppertime yet,” Omera says, but her scandalized tone is forced. 

“You two can’t ask me to do this and not expect me to want to be all over your skin afterward.” Cara punctuates that by trying to blow her hair out of her face, but it doesn’t work, and finally Omera leans forward and tucks it away behind her ear. Cara smiles her thanks. 

“Speaking of all over my skin, suppose I want more of these?” Omera stretches her hand in Din’s gentle grasp. “I’m thinking about a circle around my elbow next.” 

Cara swallows at the thought of marking her elsewhere, of more pale dots shining like constellations on Omera’s skin. “You’re changing the subject.” 

“The kids are occupied,” Din says, mostly to Omera. “They were trying to smuggle the scanner unit out of the barn.” 

Sneaky little grifters. And of course he didn’t stop them--but that’s a problem for future-Cara. She looks eagerly to Omera. “The harvest?” 

“Can spare me a while,” says Omera, and a thrill goes through Cara. 

She lowers her head to finish Din’s ring. She doesn’t rush, takes her time in cleaning up too. Soon enough the ink and unopened needles are packed away, and everything else is disposed of, and their table is fit for meals again. Cara gestures for the sensor to kill the lights, but immediately puts her hand on Din’s arm to stop him from taking off the helmet. She turns her chemlight on once more. 

They could be three satellites out in the vacuum of space. Three delicate circles floating, disconnected from anything. 

One of them floats toward Cara’s face; she can tell it’s Omera by the feel of her calluses. Cara switches off the light and takes them to bed. 

**Author's Note:**

> Cheers for reading! As always, you can send me OT3 prompts on my Tumblr @hauntedfalcon


End file.
